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An anonymous reader writes "The Montreal Policemen's Brotherhood is proposing that officers be equipped with uniform-mounted cameras that can be used to record various interactions. The union says in other jurisdictions where police officers are equipped with point-of-view cameras, the use of force by officers and assaults on officers drops by as much as 60%. One system is currently being tested in Edmonton, Alberta."

my point was perhaps too subtle... the purpose was to acknowledge the ubiquity of mobile video recording devices and the utility they provide while pointing out the apparent change from the traditional "don't film me while I'm working" attitude of most modern police forces. As long as the camera is actively recording the actions of the police, this would be a step forward in ensuring police are better controlled to work within the law. But it only works if they are ALL required to be recorded while on duty. No more double standards with them being allowed to record the public but the public not being allowed to record them.

The reason behind the embedded cameras on policemen has nothing to do with a better control of their work. It has to do with the fact that in the past months, many embarrassing videos by people using their mobile device to record the scene where released and these videos are not always telling the whole story. So, the policemen themselves prefer to wear and record the scene they are involved in, in case such a video is released they will be able to tell the whole story to the public. Of course, if it is found the policeman himself is not having a proper conduct, it will also be easier to management to assess it and act accordingly. But the main goal is to protect policemen against street videos recorded with mobile device that do not tell the whole story about a particular event.

The issue is that the video didn't show the previous couple minutes where the police had the suspect on the ground and the suspect broke away and started fighting again or had bitten, scratched, kneed, etc officers as they were trying to cuff him.

It's called necessary force. Not "as much force as I want to use because the suspect resisted". Unfortunately, many cops don't understand the distinction either.

"But it only works if they are ALL required to be recorded while on duty. No more double standards with them being allowed to record the public but the public not being allowed to record them."

Not just that, but let's make sure there is no more coincidental "Oops... I didn't have my camera on" when things don't go their way.

I was the victim of that myself once. Video camera was in prominent view, and recording light was on, but when it was time to go to court and describe what the police did, the recording had "mysteriously disappeared". Yeah right.

OK, like in UK, where surveillance cameras suddenly fail to operate when its convenient to the police.

I'm all for the video cameras on the police, provide the camera is "sealed" from tampering and the police are compelled to produce the video evidence else the prosecution fails and the courts charges the police for contempt.

Weird because when french canadians tried to have their own country, the anglos were in the street claiming their love and begging for them to stay a part of Canada. Remember the 1995 referendum ? Yes the one where the liberals cheated... There is nothing we would love more than have our own country. Help us get there at the next referendum and then we can start to love each other again.

Btw, I'm not the anonymous coward and I do not share his views about beating up people...

What natural resources does Quebec have other than huge open pit asbestos (shipped to third world countries so poor people can use it without being made aware of the health risks) and gold mines that are never reclaimed like they do in the oil sands. Quebec just passed a 5 year moratorium on fracking and drilling so what are these natural resources you speak of? And if Quebec was so financially beneficial to the rest of Canada why don't they pay Alberta equalization payments? And how come Quebec has three t

The french can bitch when they start paying for things in Alberta. If the french paid their own way they could do what they like and no one would give a shit. But like the 40 year old child getting an allowance and living in mommy's basement, get a job and move out.

It was proposed by the police union, so you can pretty much garuntee that turning it off won't be a big deal to them. It really should be on 100% of the time, but I'm sure it will "break" at all the right times.

Since the system is still in the proposal stage, there can be no reasonable claim that it is implmented in the way described. Therefore it is clear that the original statement was a statement of belief about how it would be implemented.

It would be nice if there weren't a lot of evidence in support of their attitude.

The union says in other jurisdictions where police officers are equipped with point-of-view cameras, the use of force by officers and assaults on officers drops by as much as 60%.

This sort of tells us what we already knew. That basically most of the force police use already is applied illegally applied or over-applied [knowyourmeme.com]. The camera is forcing police to act more ethically, which reduces their use of force, but also hints that they widely act unethically at present. It isn't unique to Canada. [gawker.com]

The major difference here is police officers wear a uniform, and as such their behavior is perceived to representative of everyone wearing that same uniform.

The same way you trust a person in a nurses uniform to tend to your wounds, or injuries, you should be able to trust a person in a police officers uniform to uphold the law. Unfortunately, when the 'decent' police turn a blind eye to the bad apples activities, the uniform as a whole suffers for it, and public trust goes down.

That is, often a police officer will aggress against a person for whatever reason and then later claim that the person they aggressed against was the agressor. It basically allows an officer to arrest or even beat anyone up for anything and is a much more common tactic than you think. When the citizen gets to court, do you think a judge or jury will believe the police officer or the citizen? [nytimes.com]

We hear a lot about the minority of cases where a bystander taped the scene and the police did something wrong, but you don't hear about the majority where nobody was there to video tape it.

That's all fair enough, but you appear to be talking about specific oddities where US law redefines common language in specific and counter-intuitive ways. That doesn't necessarily mean anyone else in the world does so, and I see nothing in the context of the original quote to suggest that it was referring to any US jurisdiction.

From an outsider's point of view, the US authorities and in particular US LEOs seem to have a much more adversarial relationship with the citizens they allegedly protect than most o

That camera must be one powerful weapon if it has caused such a great reduction in "assaults on officers." I don't suppose it could be that they were making shit up, and now find it more difficult to do so with video evidence? Could this be extrapolated to suggest that a majority of "resisting arrest" charges are entirely bogus?

Or perhaps it could be that people don't want to hit a cop now that they know that there is video proof. In some jurisdictions, assaults on police officer charges go nowhere in court (but are supposed to come with real jail time).

What do you mean by "go nowhere"? I was charged with assaulting a police officer in addition to pretty much every other contempt of cop charge and received a very generous plea bargain offer from the prosecutor with no jail time and only 6 months probation. My attorney argued for 3 months and the judge accepted it. I could only assume the generous offer was due to the fact that the prosecutor either didn't believe the cop's bullshit story or felt there wasn't enough evidence to convict me. There were at least 6 or 7 police witnesses who presumably would have backed up the guy's lies if it had gone to trial. So it does seem strange. It may be that even the prosecutors have stopped believing the cops.

Of course the prosecutors know the cops are full of shit. The judges (mostly ex-prosecutors) know too. Everyone in the system knows what's going on, they just don't give a shit. The purpose of the system is to keep people subservient to it, not to dispense justice, and everyone pretending to believe the testilying helps to support that.

Or perhaps it could be that people don't want to hit a cop now that they know that there is video proof. In some jurisdictions, assaults on police officer charges go nowhere in court (but are supposed to come with real jail time).

The world is a very big place, but I suspect there are very few jurisdictions in North America where "assault on police officer" charges don't go anywhere. It's a standard add-on charge the cops use if they get physical. And when it comes down to your word against the cop's, the cop's version is going to win, whether the cop made it up or not.

But I do predict that there will be many mysterious camera failures. The fact that they happen just before the cop beats the crap out of somebody will be entirely c

As a counterpoint, I've seen quite a few cases where somebody ends up being charged with 'assaulting an officer' more or less for arguing with him.

I've seen videos of it. Sure, the person is normally being a douche while running his mouth a mile a minute and is sometimes failing to take action to officer directions that require active movement like 'Turn around', 'get on your knees', etc... But does failing to produce ID count as assaulting a police officer? Threatening a lawsuit? Complaining that the stop is illegal?

These charges normally end up dropped, but my point would be that if officers think they can get away with charges like this when the interaction is being caught on their car's camera, what are they doing when they don't think they're being video taped?

Maybe, knowing that they're being recorded, the officers are actually practicing their de-escalation techniques and they're working.

Just stating the first logical conclusion. Given that it's a certainty the cop knows bout his uniform camera, and an uncertainty that any potential assaulter knows about it, there is a much higher probability that the reduction in assaults is attributable directly to the officer being aware of the camera.

They usually don't actually attack first. The problem is, once they get started you're gonna get stomped. Usually it's like this, the officer says get up against the car. You say "fuck you." He then grabs you and throws you against the car. If, at this point you cease to resist he cuffs you. If you fight against it, it's on. He's going to beat you senseless then cuff you. After that it's off to jail where you get charged with assaulting an officer. I can't say it's right but it was easily avoidabl

Saying hang on a minute and pushing the cops hands away as they try to man-handle you, is not attacking. But will also be considered "assaulting an officer". So... really think about what the definition of attack is.

I think cameras on all cops will be awesome. But it needs to not be able to be turned off. And if it "malfunctions" there needs to be a look into what the cop was doing at that time. Because they turn off their cameras when its convenient for them. After all... why record yourself taking a br

I think cameras on all cops will be awesome. But it needs to not be able to be turned off. And if it "malfunctions" there needs to be a look into what the cop was doing at that time. Because they turn off their cameras when its convenient for them. After all... why record yourself taking a bribe?

What would be even more effective is for juries to vote to acquit any time the camera "malfunctions", or the judge just throw the case out based on the 'malfunction'. I know that if I'm on a jury, and video evi

Good for you guys! I'm betting this will really improve officer behavior, but only if the penalties for "malfunctions" are severe, e.g. disciplinary actions against the LEO and never pressing charges against anyone during whose arrest a "malfunction" has occurred.

Sorry, but you've got that wrong. The punishment doesn't need to be severe, but needs to be relatively certain. A minor punishment that you are fairly certain will be applied is much more effective than a severe punishment that is quite uncertain. And heavy punishments are typically applied much more sparingly.

Started about a year ago. They are turned on when the shift starts and can't be turned off until the shift has ended.

Mounted on a hat above the right ear and they have sound.

Indiana, by the way.

This is absolutely needed. The powers that be forget far too often that they themselves are human and not only make mistakes but are corruptible as well. Kudos to your locals for doing this!

Of course this wouldn't stop a sudden application of silly putty on the lense and/or microphone. The mic would be the better choice there - "I'm sorry sir but we seemed to have had audio transmission issues during that incident."

I'm betting that officers who have an inordinate amount of "malfunctions" end up riding a desk. The main reason for these cameras isn't to protect the citizenry but to cut down on lawsuits. With all the cameras out in public now video evidence of police brutality is popping up more and more. If officers know they are being recorded then that will save the city a lot of money.

I've come to believe that you don't so much have good or bad police officers. What you have is good or bad police DEPARTMENTS. The difference in local police culture can be tremendous.

I'll try to boil it down a bit: Basically, take a brand new cop. They run the range of idealistic and great to power tripping and corrupt. Good and Bad, but most are in the middle. Then they get to their first department. A good department will show the bad eggs the door rather quickly, provide good role models to the m

Did you read my post beyond the first sentence? Bad cops cover for bad cops, making for whole bad departments. Good cops don't, quickly weeding out bad cops, and ensuring 'middling' cops are corrected whenever they stray even a little, keeping them on the straight and narrow.

You have a bad department it's a royal pain to clean up. You have to fire huge gobs of corrupt/bad officers, retrain the ones you can salvage, etc...

The bad department theory helps explain why some departments have so many more problems than others, why so many cops don't see problems - because there aren't problems in their view. The bad cops all run together, and often know 'which' cops they can and cannot act up around.

Basically a law saying that if a police officer is supposed to have a camera running on something, and that footage is unavailable for whatever reason, then their testimony is excluded. So if they are giving testimony about a time when they don't have a camera and aren't supposed to, like they are off duty, then their testimony is treated like the testimony of any other person. However if they were supposed to have a camera at the time and the footage is gone, well then they can't offer any testimony as to what happened during that time.

It would give strong incentive to keep them on and running, and make sure the footage is kept. Otherwise, cases would get lost due to lack of evidence.

You wouldn't want a guilty perp to go free just because of a glitch in the recording system

You wouldn't want a guilty perp to go free just because evidence was obtained inappropriately either, but you must (and almost all courts will) reject such evidence if you want standards for how evidence is fairly obtained to mean anything. If the case at hand can't stand up without it, that's unfortunate but necessary on a "greater good" basis.

In the case of copcam that we're talking about, the obvious analogue would be to give the benefit of the doubt to the non-officer in any case where an officer was or

Isn't recording space these days cheap/compact enough that they can just record all the time, and not even contain functionality for being turned off? I mean, the officer could still deliberately disable the device, but if it had no on/off switch and they had to overtly damage/destroy it, that would be a higher bar (and a lot easier to punish them for).

We don't need such a law. A judge can and should impose contempt-of-court sanctions on those who tamper with evidence. If you have a camera and you're in a confrontation, there's no way to play silly and not know that should you tamper with the camera, you're tampering with evidence. If I was a judge, I'd toss whoever tampers with camera footage evidence, whether Joe the plumber or a cop or archbishop Canterbury, in jail for a week and have them pay for an ad in a major local paper admitting to the fact and

Frankly said, given the slight loss of my privacy vs. loss of accountability for a force that's supposed to uphold the law, I have no problem with the loss of my privacy. And no, this is not a slippery slope.

Contemporary electronics are fairly reliable. The chances of the camera failing at the exact moment of confrontation further diminish by a few orders of magnitude the likelihood that a just-in-time malfunction isn't due to intentional tampering with evidence. Cops can't but know that should any court case result from a confrontation, their camera footage is evidence, and if you tamper with it, the court should be handing you your ass on a platter. You're entirely wrong that we don't need the courts now, we

You can see them turn the camera back on in the video when they discover they are being filmed.

You can also watch as they sit on top of a prone man -- who was only guilty of littering (and presumably only if he left the scene after missing the garbage can) -- while restraining him on the ground, punching him repeatedly in the face.

While doing so, with the video off but audio recording enabled, the police officer repeatedly shouts to stop resisting and to turn over -- which the victim obviously cannot do because he's, you know, being restrained against the ground.

However, an audit of the audio would collaborate a "I was trying to get him to stop fighting me and lay down and he wouldn't" defense.

Personally, I feel the officers should not be able to turn off their cameras on their own, instead requiring dispatch to send a signal to do so. I do not believe police officers should have an expectation of privacy while on duty, especially given the special authority we allot them as officers of the peace.

There is a second, very similar, instance of this happening in Canada recently, which I believe is the reason this bill was proposed. Apparently the Edmonton police have a reputation not dissimilar to our own LAPD for corruption.

Yes, what about it? What, you think that you'll be showing the entire shift's worth of footage in court or on local TV news? Could people please stop with the reactionary "but think of xyz!" and actually think themselves?

I am thinking for myself and I think the officer, no matter what you think of his privacy rights, isn't always going to want that recorded even if it may only be viewed by a single person, leaked, or viewed ever. They have rights too. Can you please stop with the reactionary nonsense and actually think about someone other than yourself?

Something like that seems reasonable enough. And if the camera footage is stopped other than as the officer walks into somewhere you would legitimately expect camera footage to be stopped, fall back to whatever presumption of tainted evidence position you would otherwise take if the camera "fell off accidentally" etc.

Alternatively, any officer can turn their own recording equipment off but it will make a clearly audible noise while disabled so they can't forget to turn it back on again and anyone they appro

So what that there will be such footage? It normally has nothing to do with any court cases and doesn't have to be introduced into evidence. You don't need to have the entire shift's footage in evidence, and even if you decide to, the judge can enforce some rules as to access to such evidence, up to and including holding whoever leaks it or behaves inappropriately in accessing the evidence in contempt. It's a solved problem, don't make up dumb excuses, pwetty please.

All footage is automatically and continually uploaded to servers located in a branch of government with a vested interest in preservation of the footage.

There is no power switch, it is always on, self contained and hardened against direct access without custom, specialized tools.

Any time footage is "missing", the officer is automatically suspended with pay pending an investigation. If it's determined to be a genuine malfunction, the officer can resume work. If it can be reasonably demonstrated, however, that the officer deliberately disabled, tampered with or obstructed the device, they should be forced to pay back any wages received during the suspension and charged for tampering with evidence.

But, really, who am I kidding... in reality, this will be no different than dash cams in every cruiser. Any time there is a hint of officer abuse or brutality, the footage will be mysteriously and conveniently "unavailable", there will be no real oversight to the whereabouts and, "yes, your honor, the camera just happened to malfunction during the exact time of the brutality accusations against me," will be accepted by the courts.

Until we have real oversight by people who genuinely have the public interest in mind over their own, this won't change anything.

the use of force by officers and assaults on officers drops by as much as 60%

Uh huh, and do you know why that is? That's because if you annoy a cop, you get charged with "assault on a police officer" even if you didn't touch them. With a video recorder serving as a witness, the cops know they can't engage in what is commonly called "testilying."

In my city, the charges cops love to slap anyone they don't like with include AOAPO and "disturbing the peace" - the latter of which basically consists of "a crowd gathered because of you."

I knew someone - a sub-5-foot-tall, sub-100-lb girl - whose birthday party was ended by cops because it was too loud. Fair enough. She provides her information to one cop, and then a second cop comes in and asks her for her personal information again a few minutes later. She asks him why - she just gave it to the other cop. He refuses to say why, and she asks him again why he can't get the information from the other cop.

Next thing she remembers, her head is slammed on the countertop and she's in cuffs. Spent the night in jail, and the next day in court answering charges including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault on a police officer.

The judge looks at her, then looks at the cop, who's a burly nearly-6-foot-tall dude, then looks at the charges and says "Seriously? SHE resisted arrest and assaulted YOU? You've got to be kidding me. Dismissed."

Wasted thousands of dollars in legal fees, because some dickhead cop broke the law and filed false charges, lied in his report, and lied in court.

Spent the night in jail, and the next day in court answering charges including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault on a police officer.

Something very similar happened to me. The cop even charged me with assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon. A much more serious charge. A felony which could have resulted in many years in prison. Because beating me nearly to death just wasn't sufficient apparently. That deadly weapon charge mysteriously vanished when I appeared in court.

The judge looks at her, then looks at the cop, who's a burly nearly-6-foot-tall dude, then looks at the charges and says "Seriously? SHE resisted arrest and assaulted YOU? You've got to be kidding me. Dismissed."

Unfortunately, being male, I didn't get any such leniency from the judge and now I have "assault and battery on a police officer" on my record. In addition to every other contempt of cop charge the asshole could think of. I wasn't found guilty. I pleaded something similar to "no contest" because the plea bargain offer had no jail time. Just probation and a small fine. I paid thousands in legal fees and have lingering memory problems as a result of the beating I received.

Since my contact with the police was due to a roadblock, I plan to either move to one of the few states where such things are illegal or leave the country entirely for a place where the police are not so violent and dangerous.

If only the cop who beat me had been forced to wear a camera which was required to be on for any of the common contempt of cop charges to be allowed I would have been saved at least from the false charges. I would probably still have been severely injured or even killed but that would have been the end of it.

I wasn't found guilty. I pleaded something similar to "no contest" because the plea bargain offer had no jail time.

Guess what, you have that on the record because "no contest" is effectively the same as pleading guilty. As a result, you may find moving to another country incredibly difficult. Heck, even Canada will demand thousands in fees and professional document creation(IE lawyers filling out forms) before they'll let you in.

Of course, I hate how our current system allows police and prosecutors to effectively punish people without ever finding them guilty of anything. Legal fees alone can ruin people.

As somebody who frequently works with law enforcement, they get blamed for a lot of ridiculous (and completely false) stuff - I've seen officers get accused of assaults (and then exonerated when surveillance footage from a building shows they didn't even touch the suspect). A lot of our officers just recently got uniform-mounted cameras and the footage always shows that the complaints are completely unfounded.

The union says in other jurisdictions where police officers are equipped with point-of-view cameras, the use of force by officers and assaults on officers drops by as much as 60%.

That's a meaningless "statistic", because it's actually two statistics combined. How much did "the use of force by officers" drop by and how much did "assaults on officers" drop by? Considering how much the police love to be monitored when on duty, I wouldn't trust any proposal like this coming from a police union.

How much do they like being monitored? Do you know, or are you just guessing based on a few sensational news stories?

I don't know of any studies on the matter, so yes it's based on anecdotes. There have been a lot of what you call "sensational news stories" about police "objecting" to being photographed or video recorded, where "objecting" can anything from falsely yelling that it's illegal (in fact it's expressly protected) to illegally grabbing the camera to finding some excuse to arrest the person (which means their equipment is confiscated and erased, if not damaged). Mysteriously the charges are usually dismissed, which often means there were no grounds for them in the first place.

I even witnessed one such event as a teenager where my friend started photographing someone getting arrested (in the park, not at some demonstration) and was told in no uncertain terms to get lost or risk being arrested.

I also worked on an early vehicle locating system, that would report back to base station where a vehicle was. This was a long time ago when such an idea was novel. Pilot systems were installed in ambulances in one city and patrol cars in another. The ambulance drivers never had any problem with it. Units were returned from patrol cars with anything from wires ripped out to, in one case, a shotgun blast though it.

It could be completely opposite of what you think, as this guy [slashdot.org] suggests with his anecdote.

He wrote:

A lot of our officers just recently got uniform-mounted cameras and the footage always shows that the complaints are completely unfounded.

First, how do I know he isn't talking about selective monitoring (use it when police are innocent, don't turn it on or "lose" it when they're not)? That's the biggest issue on this thread. Second, he wrote "always shows that the complaints are completely unfounded". Always?

The camera is continuously active and the video stream uploaded and stored for a minimum of 90 days.

The complete, unedited recording shall be made available to the defense no less than 14 days before trial is scheduled and in any event no more than 14 days after charges are filed. Failure to supply the video shall be grounds for immediate dismissal of all charges against all defendants.

Absence of any video recording of relevant events for any non-trivial part of the time period in question is automatic grounds for the dismissal of all charges against all defendants in the case in question. It's also grounds for felony destruction of evidence charges against the officers whose cameras failed to record events and the officers responsible for monitoring and preserving the recordings. The burden shall be on the police to show that the failure was due to failure of the camera hardware or the network link.

So basically you're saying its a typical metro area? And compared to almost all the other metro areas in north america, its dirty cheap, liberal, well maintained and green. Aside a few US states, everywhere has to report $$$ to two levels of governments and the way the credit agencies operate in Canada is far better than in the US.

Wake me up when you can't buy a decent 2 bedroom for 1 million+++ anymore.

I'm sorry that your significant other was silly enough not to be able to deal with what the life has served you both. I can't understand such relationships. If you're not in "it" together, then what's the point? Lower taxes?

But I expect he was, badly, trying to make a comparison to the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea or some such. What really tips his hand that he's not actually a Canadian is that the question that shows up on job applications in this country is "have you ever been convicted of an offense for which a pardon has not been granted." It's ridiculously easy to get a pardon in this country, an issue which has been the subject of national-level debate in parliament.